Khaye
by AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: "His last word was my name. And I did not respond." A poem based on Elie Wiesel's memoir "Night" about his imprisonment at Auschwitz during the Holocaust.


**A/N:** Another diamond plucked from the rough depths of childhood- this time, it's a poem I originally wrote in eighth grade. Five years on, it still gleams brightly, so I dusted it off in the hopes that it may become another jewel in my crown.

I shall stop with the metaphors.

This centers around Elie Wiesel's relationship with his father. Violence and major character death ahead.

The title is Yiddish for "animal".

* * *

When I arrived at the concentration camp

Life as I had known it

Disintegrated.

Such lofty and exalted values

As _loyalty_ and _family_ and _love_

All dissipated

Before the primal instincts

Of self-preservation

And of food.

All that mattered

Was food

Be it a ration of soup

Discarded potato peels

a moldy crust of bread

Friends and family

Who were once the cornerstones of my life

Now became burdens, encumbrances, millstones.

In the reality of starvation

Bonds of blood and friendship meant nothing.

All that mattered was my stomach.

But, reinforced by a lifetime

Of values of loyalty and honor

And centuries of human civilization,

I rebelled furiously against the animal within myself.

Foolishly I vowed I could fight my primal instincts,

That I could resist the temptation of food.

That even when on the threshold of death

I would stand by my father

Even should it mean my starvation

But already

I could feel the ties

Of father and son

Disappearing

My father politely asking the _Blockälteste_

To go to the bathroom

A slap was the mere response

So strong that he fell down

I should have clawed this sinner

Who had beat my father

In response to a civil request

But I felt nothing at all

Only a desire to avoid the same blow

One day in a concentration camp

and I had already succumbed

to the animal within.

* * *

Again a few weeks later

The temperamental overseer Idek

Beating my poor father with an iron bar

All I felt

Was anger at my father

For being lazy enough to be punished

And a cowardly fear

Not to suffer the same punishment

I was not alone in my betrayal

There was Rabbi Eliahu's son

And a son who murdered his father

For a crust of bread

But I strived to stay human

I prayed to a God

I no longer believed in

To help me stand by my father

Over and over

I stayed by my father

I gave him what food I could

I fought tooth and nail

To save his unconscious body.

But in the end

I failed

His last wish

Was to have me by his side

At his death

Not for a drink of water

Not for one last crust of bread

Nothing

Just my presence

This last wish I could not grant him

A man who had lost nearly his whole family

Starved and beaten, tortured and humiliated

Yet all he asked for

Was his son's presence by his side

And yet I could not grant him his last wish

I was a bunk away

Even in my famished, feeble state

I could have rushed to his side

Taken his hand

Comforted him as he traveled out of this life

But I was afraid.

Afraid.

Of the blows

The SS beating my father for crying out

A blow to his skull, ending his tormented life

I remained on my bed

Pinned by fear of the club

And irrational anger at my father

And the animal within me.

In the end

I was not human

I could not fight hunger and self-preservation

I could not comfort my father in his last moments

I struggled, long and hard

Tried for so long to honor my father

But in the end, I failed.

His last word was my name.

And I did not respond.

* * *

After he died, my life devolved to nothing

But my rations of bread and soup

Eventually I was liberated

Fed and hydrated and healed and treated

I rebuilt my life

I wrote many books

Started a family

But I will never be able to forgive myself

Or mankind

For I never should have been put in that position

Never should any of it have happened

Never should I have lost my parents and sister

Never should I have been starved, beaten, and humiliated

Never should millions of people have been

murdered for their faith

Or millions more have been murdered trying to save them

Never should countries have been wrecked

Never should lives have been ruined

Never should a world have been forever marred

Never should it have been humans' doing

to other humans

It's not too hard

To succumb

To the animal within

We must fight the animal within ourselves

Remember our humanity and our good hearts

Only then shall it be possible

That this does not happen again

That people may worship in peace

That a son may not turn against his father

That people may not suffer

Only then shall it be possible.

And it _is_ possible.

For we are not animals.

We are humans.

And we must remember that.


End file.
